a paper story

I try not to write about my students for a multitude of reasons. This year I have had difficulty keeping quiet about them because I have some fun students. A couple of days ago one of these kids reminded me why I want sons--someday.

The bell had rung and everyone had hastened out the door, but when I turned I saw him hunched over a desk, fingers flying, determined. It was another paper airplane.

"You really like paper airplanes."

"Uh. I guess."

"You guess? You've been making at least one a day for the past two weeks."

"Well. Paper has to be doing something."

A short story started to form in my mind, crowded out by the desire to be a good short story writer. My attention returned to the boy folding the paper; his sentence made so much sense of him. He was like his paper, always doing something.

He continued: "I see a piece of paper and it has to have writing on it, or it has to," he paused for a lack of words, "it has to be doing something. You know." With this, he ran out of the room with his precise paper plane. (I know for a fact that his planes always fly.)

And somehow I did know. I thought of all the paper in my room, the paper he didn't know about, and it coming to life for the sheer will of this boy. The paper danced, and the paper creased, crumpled into balls, and unfurled to become something new. In my mind's eye I had a room full of lively oragami and this student enjoying the time of his life.